WI: Aegean War '96

In 1996, a dispute between Turkey and Greece over the islands of Imia and Kardak saw forces being deployed to the islands and nearly escalated into a shooting war between the two NATO allies. The crisis was ultimately defused by US mediation.

What if the crisis had escalated into an open war? How would the rest of NATO respond?

I'd have to look for it, but years ago I read some old paper from the 1990s (I think it was either a RAND or a DIA paper) about how the US might respond to potential crises in the post-Cold War world, ranging from another Gulf War to relief operations after an Indo-Pak nuclear war. One of these was a Greco-Turkish War, and interestingly enough said paper alleged that the US would aid Greece over Turkey - which seems to be distinctly separate from Cold War thinking, which gave Turkey priority due to it's Soviet borders and control over the Bosphorous, and seemed to consider Greece a potential liability that was bound to go neutral or flip to red any minute.
 
Who shoots first is often debatable, and not infrequently unprovable, certainly hard to determine without historical analysis. Assuming the initial attack is not a deliberate move, this sort of thing could very well start over a trip flare set off by an animal, one side shoots thinking there is an attack, the other side responds and away we go. A collision at sea or near collision could similarly start things off. Even after all the archives are opened it may never be clear who starts...
 
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